


i see dead people

by discountghost



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, F/F, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:59:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24767341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discountghost/pseuds/discountghost
Summary: Just another day at work
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Kim Jongdae | Chen
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: CHERRYKISSES FEST (Round 1)





	i see dead people

**Author's Note:**

> for prompt #53!

“I feel death.”

“That’s the entirety of your existence.” 

Kyungsoo sighed, pressed her fingers to her temples. Part of her wondered why she did this. Why she had ever had thought that it would be a good idea. Her fingers drummed against wooden tabletop. The hiss of the expresso machines made her jump from her thoughts. The door jingled, signaling the entrance of someone else. She flicked hair from her eyes as Jongdae blew at the steam wafting up from her mug of...she wasn’t quite sure what that was. The other had a penchant for ordering absurd concoctions. All Kyungsoo knew was that it cast the other in a sort of dreamy vision. Her hair was cropped short, slicked back like always. Too light eyes made milkier by the steam. Her gaze went from Kyungsoo, to someone approaching them. The other’s eyes widened, and Kyungsoo followed her gaze.

Kyungsoo would be lying if she said the woman that strolled over to them didn’t look like some sort of celebrity. Long, curled brown hair that was almost a halo around her face. Bright eyes accented by crow’s feet. But there was something vaguely familiar about her. On closer inspection — 

“By the gods, it is  _ her. _ ” For once, Jongdae’s fascination with celebrity gossip pools is useful. Because Kyungsoo didn’t know who  _ her _ is until the other says it. Cup clinking against the tabletop as she stood and bowed. Her earrings swing in her ear, silver threads dangling almost near the hollow of her throat. “Mrs. Ju, I am a very big fan of yours. It would be such an honor to take this case.”

The woman in question smiled. “I didn’t even tell you anything about my request.” The amusement in her voice was clear. This sort of treatment was something that she must have reveled in when she was in her prime. Or, maybe still does. Kyungsoo wouldn’t really know. 

She cleared her throat, drawing her assistant and potential client’s attention to her as she fidgeted. Her notebook was open, neat handwriting organizing sections to jot information in. 

“Right. About that.” She leveled a glare at Jongdae until the other plopped down in her seat, almost petulant. Almost. “I understand you said your case was particularly troubling.”

“Yes, well.” The woman sighed, let her chin rest in the palm of her hand as she considered her words. “I have a problem with — well, it’s more like it’s my new husband’s problem. He suspects that something he owns is, well, cursed. I’m not one to think much of these things, but…” She glanced around, gaze scanning over the cafe. For someone so famous, people seemed to be minding their own business. Mostly. “You know how they say sets can be haunted? I think it’s the whole  _ house _ .”

A camera flashed. Kyungsoo frowned. “What you’re saying is, you think your house is haunted.”

“Yes.” She looked confident, though her forehead creased. Worry. “And I don’t know how it happened. A few months ago, before I moved in, it was perfectly fine.”

“They can seem that way. Maybe it was dormant.”

Jongdae scooted forward in her seat. “Maybe there was an incident that woke the spirits slumbering in your home. If left to fester, most spirits latch onto something familiar.”

“Nothing in that house is older than a few months.” The actress’ voice thinned, like her lips as she pressed them together. “We remodeled after I moved in to—”

“Make it seem more like a home for the two of you.” Jongdae said it like she was reading a quote from an interview. Then, she lifted her cup and sucked down a piping hot gulp of it. Unfazed. Kyungsoo watched her with only mild concern, having grown somewhat used to the sight. “Forgive her; she does not like to keep up with the modern world.”

“Not all of us were locked in a hand mirror for three hundred years.”

“And that is simply no excuse to do even a  _ little _ bit of research on your client.”

“Tabloids are not ‘research’.”

Mrs. Ju cleared her throat, dragged the bickering pair from the little bubble they’d encased themselves in. Her smile was nothing short of amused by the exchange she’d witnessed, and if the reddening of her neck was anything to go by, there might have been a little bit of terror there. A glance Jongdae’s way showed the slitted pupils of the other widening, pushing out into what was supposed the human circular patterned pupils. 

Kyungsoo swallowed, pushed the frames of her glasses up. “Back to the point — Mrs. Ju, are there any specific events that lead you to believe it is the house itself and not anything you might carry with you? Heirloom jewelry?”

She shook her head, her curls troubled by the action. “No. Nothing like that.” She wrung her hands, closed her eyes as if to center herself. “It’s just. I see...I don’t really know what I see. People that shouldn’t be there? The house itself is old, but there isn’t any dark history. We made sure of that. After all those realtor horror stories…”

“Smart to double-check. It might be something attached to you or your husband. Do strange events happen when you leave the house? Throughout your day?”

She shook her head again. “It’s...normal.”

As far as Kyungsoo can tell, the house  _ was _ normal. She pulled her glasses from her face, the porpoise frames clattering by her laptop. Jongdae had fallen asleep hours ago, curled up on her side of the bed. Silk nightgown soft against her skin. Kyungsoo groaned quietly as she pushed her laptop further down the bed, shucked the covers off her legs. The soft patter of her own feet against linoleum tiles accompanied her to the kitchen.

Her head throbbed and she closed her eyes, reached blindly for the cabinet that held their medicine. The headaches were getting worse. She opened her eyes, pulled open the cabinet with enough force it smacked against the next cabinet. She winced. It was quiet, save the clock on the wall.  _ Tick tock. _ The pills rattled in the bottle as she uncapped them, downed them with a glass of tap water.

Kyungsoo glanced out the window. Neon light filtered in through it. The curtains and the floor were bathed in the light and she was reminded that they were supposed to be looking at apartment listings. She took another sip of the water, felt the glass clink against her teeth before her eyes landed on the mirror in the hall. The light hit that, too, revealed a smudge by her reflection.

Jongdae would be upset; she always got upset when the mirrors were dirty. A leftover impression from her days trapped in the glass. A smudged mirror was an altered reality she couldn’t handle. Murky images that had been too much for her to handle. Kyungsoo rubbed her fingers over the smudge. Licked them and then did it again. The smudge didn’t move. It only seemed to get worse, really, and Kyungsoo would hate to have Jongdae wake up to it. Hate to watch the way terror claimed her as if she would be faced with something Kyungsoo wouldn’t know how to face. She swallowed, set the glass down to get a cloth. 

Her breath fogged the glass as she crumpled up the paper in her hands. Scrubbed away at the mirror with the same sort of fervor she had seen her lover do when they had cleaning days. Made sure it was spotless. Pristine. The smudge remained. But it didn’t. It just got bigger the more she scrubbed, the harder she scrubbed. Until it wasn’t a stain.

She froze. Stared at her reflection, and the smudge beside it. A smudge no more but the murky image of another reflection. Of something else. It rushed her, reached through the mirror to pull her in. Icy fingers sharp as glass sinking into her flesh as black eyes stared back at her, reflecting her own terror. Her fingers latched onto the edge of the mirror, grounding herself.

Her face pressed up against the glass. Cold, so cold. She could utter no more of a whimper before she shut her eyes — 

And opened them to the darkness of her room. The sheets clung to her like a second skin. Her chest rose and fell almost in time with the racing of her heart until that slowed. She turned her head, and there was Jongdae. Watching her.

“Nightmare?”

“Mhm.”

“Same one.”

“Mhm.”

Jongdae swallowed; Kyungsoo could see that much in the darkness of the room. “They say that dreams are a reflection of the problems we have in reality.” A beat, then — “Are you thinking about what happened to me?”

She let the silence answer for her. And it rang back with Jongdae’s answer as the other slipped her fingers between’s Kyungsoo’s clammy, sweat-slick ones. She swallowed harshly, drowning the sob that she wanted to let out. Jongdae’s grip was a tether. She listened to the other breathe easily, rhythmically. Waited for her own breathing to steady before she tried sinking back into sleep.

“I understand you look stunning, but this appropriate work attire?” Mrs. Ju’s brow rose with the question, gazed fixed on Jongdae.

Of course, that was kind of the point of her choice of clothing. Bright red pants suit; waist cinched tight by a belt. No shirt; Kyungsoo had asked her rather nicely to put one on. “You have to challenge a spirit. If it feels comfortable, like it does not have a challenge, it feels brave.” She pulled her sunglasses off, bright eyes turned onto the actress. “We must make it our bitch. I think that is what people say these days.”

Kyungsoo’s attention was on the house. Unassuming, like any other ordinary home. Maybe it would have been better to say that it suited someone of the middle class and not someone with awards tied to her name. But she supposed that was the point of it; to blend in. Her stomach churned as she looked up at, and its neighbors, before turning her attention back to the other two. They’d fallen silent. 

Jongdae smoothed her hand over her hair, making sure the hairs weren’t out of place from where they had been slicked back. Red leather gloves to match the suit. Her sunglasses dangled from her other hand as she stepped forward. Heels on stone clicked as she went up the steps, the wood whining as she opened the door. It was quiet a moment, and when Kyungsoo’s own battered white sneakers hit the steps and pulled her in behind the other, dread sunk into her. Like it was an occupant waiting to greet her as she stepped through the door. Jongdae stood stock still, back straight. Her sunglasses clattered to the ground as Kyungsoo rounded on her.

The signs were always easy to see. At least, when she had seen them so often. The trickle of sweat down the other’s brow, the erratic dance of her gaze. Her lips worked; counting? She was still going. The trembling started out small. Tremors in her hands. Then her knees knocked together. Her teeth chattered. Her entire frame vibrated as if something wanted to push itself out of her. Kyungsso drew back, watched the way the other’s eyes narrowed in on her.

“Mrs. Ju, I need you to stay back.”

The woman froze midstep, hand on the door. Her gaze darted to Jongdae.

“Cover your ears and—” The words had only just barely made it past her teeth when Jongdae’s lips parted around a scream. 

Rattled everything in the house, shook the ground. It was the scream of a creature that Kyungsoo had grown accustomed to. The kind that reflected the torment it saw. A scream of this magnitude meant something. The veins of Jongdae’s neck bulged, her face reddening. As quickly as it came, the scream ended and she rocked forward. Heavy breaths carried her chest up and down just a bit off beat. She still shook with the aftermath of it, head turning slowly to face Kyungsoo.

“Where’s the door to the basement?” Jongdae’s voice was hoarse. Mrs. Ju lifted a shaking finger to the hall, a darkened void. Kyungsoo pushed forward, pulling the small mirror from in her bag.

She turned her back to the hall as she walked backwards, the mirror reflecting the things behind her. Her stomach churned. Women stood with their backs to her, as well. Faces to the wall as she walked backwards. She reached blindly for the doorknob, glanced over to where Jongdae stood. 

Just another day at work.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
